Georgia's New Recruit, Another Skupski to LSU, ITA Men's Team Indoor Field
Once the Early Signing Period ended last month, there hasn't been a great deal of college news to report. In the past, I've been able to keep in touch with what's going on in recruiting during my Florida junior trip by attending the ITA Coaches convention, but this year it was moved from Miami to Naples, and I wasn't able to go.
Bulldog coaching legend Dan Magill announced last week in the Athens Banner-Herald that Javier Garapiz of Spain would be joining the men's team in January for the dual season. The ITF junior website has his name as Javier Garrapiz-Borderias, but it is undoubtedly the same player, and although I haven't seen his name in the juniors much since 2005, he was ranked in the top 20 by the ITF early in 2006. It's always interesting to hear how a foreign player ends up in a U.S. college, and according to this article, it was Gonzalo "Talito" Corrales, the co-captain of the 1999 Georgia NCAA championship team, who comes from the same town as Garrapiz-Borderias, who made the connection.
The connection is even closer for the Skupskis of Liverpool, who are profiled in this feature by Neil Harman of the Times. Ken Skupski, who graduated from LSU this spring, was one of the Tigers' greatest players, and his younger brother Neal is now hoping to reach the All-American heights that Ken did. The LSU announcement is here.
Penn State will be making its first appearance in the ITA National Team Indoors, and in the school's release, the other 14 teams are named (one is TBD). There are five teams invited to Chicago in February of 2007 who will not be going to Seattle in six weeks: Duke, Miami, Penn, Pepperdine and Stanford. In addition to Penn State, newcomers are Alabama, North Carolina, Southern Cal and Washington (host school).
The women's field for the Team Indoor in Madison, Wisc. Feb. 7-10 is:
Arkansas
Baylor
California
Clemson
Fresno State
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Miami
North Carolina
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Southern California
Stanford
UCLA
William & Mary
Wisconsin
5 comments:
Im so glad the college season is upon us. It should be a very good one, unlike the last 3yrs when we knew who the very best teams were. Im also thankful the talk about 10-12yr old tennis will die down.
Agree with Austin. Can't wait for college tennis to begin again.
On the subject of college tennis, do coaches evaluate the character and morals of a player? Or does it not matter as long as they can win? I have seen some of the biggest hookers and players with bad sportmanship go to the finest schools with highly competitive tennis programs. Do the coaches condone their cheating? They must know the quality of their questionable character as their reputation precedes them. Comments?
Colette,
There was a great tournament in Atlanta this weekend, the Georgia Tech Holiday Classic. It is always an interesting mix of Georgia pros/ local college players and top juniors. Bobby Reynolds got beat by Luchici (UNC), and Donald Young and his partner won the doubles. Tim Wilkinson and his son played doubles together also, that was cool to see.
Anyone know the results of the Ginepri/Roddick, Harkleroad/Oudin exhibition? - didn't see it in the AJC..
Yes cheating is out of control, when I played in the 80s, they would let an older kid or parent "linejudge" a match as long as they had no connection to either player - now most of the tournaments have a couple of roving officials - and they are usually about 100 years old.
AM
Georgia
Andy, thanks for the report.
As for the Atlanta exo,
I heard that Roddick won (don't recall the score) and Harkleroad beat Oudin 6-2.
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